


Fish and Chips

by Sentra04



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:49:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1618220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sentra04/pseuds/Sentra04
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First ever fill from the BBCSherlock Kink Meme</p><p>"tl;dr - Mycroft comforts John with food, when everyone else's efforts fail"</p><p>Post Season three - Mary (and baby) have died</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fish and Chips

**Author's Note:**

> Original Prompt:  
> http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/22393.html?view=131255417#t131255417

There are no lights on. Nothing has moved at all since Sherlock left that afternoon. Nothing.

John is still seated, just as he was, when Sherlock left, staring blindly out the far windows. If he was the kind of man to fall asleep with his eyes open, Sherlock would have assumed that that was all - his friend was asleep. But John wasn’t the sort, and Sherlock knew that.

“I stopped at Angelo’s,” Sherlock heft the food bag up, hoping for any response. Any.

There was none. It had been two days since John had so much as sighed, and Sherlock was at his wits end. He was literally watching John waste away in front of him. An assortment of glasses and mugs littered the table at John’s side - days worth of attempts to get John to drink anything since the funeral. When Mary and the baby went into the ground, they might as well of buried John with them, because they certainly buried his heart and soul that day. 

“...John?” Sherlock was loathed to start pleading (again), but he was starting to get desperate. 

Nothing.

Sherlock spent another night sitting across from John, watching him, waiting with dread for the something to change. Anything. Because it was getting to the point where John was either going to snap out of it. Or he was going to black out. 

He was searching his mind palace for anything to help, when the unmistakable sound of his brother on the landing rose from the hall. Sherlock made no effort to get the door, only turning a cold look on the older man as he stood in the doorway.

“Go. Away.”

But Mycroft seemed to pay him no mind, and shrugged off his coat; it and his umbrella set aside on the kitchen table. Sherlock got up in a huff, moving to remove Mycroft’s things (intending on moving them into the trash)

With his seat now vacated, Mycroft one handedly moved Sherlock’s chair until it was directly across from John, his other hand occupied with a white, greasy, paper bag. While Sherlock made sulking huffing noises in the background (threatening to light the brolly on fire), Mycroft sat across from John, close enough their knees were touching.

Mycroft carefully opened the bag, pulling out a thick stack of paper napkins to set on his knee, less the grease soak into his trousers, before pulling out a takeout. 

“A Californian cat chased down a rogue dog that attacked a four year old riding a bike in his own driveway,” Mycroft begins, opening the takeout box and balancing a container of fish and chips on his and John’s knees. Sherlock looks at his brother like he’s lost his mind.

“This was in the town of Bakersfield, CA. Quite the cat. I wonder what Dr. Stapleton would think of it. The dog darted around a parked car, trotted up to the boy, and then literally just attacked. The cat, Tara I believe was its name, charges the dog, launched itself right at the dog.”

Mycroft continues talking, Sherlock watching baffled as his brother… gossips… with his catatonic flatmate. He’s about to charge over and demand what Mycroft is playing at when John hand eases over, snagging a fried potato sliver from the pile in front of him. He doesn’t eat it for a while - just sits there, holding it.

Mycroft continued rambling like nothing had changed, but he was staring intently at John’s hand, “A graduate student at the University of Utah has invented a method that will allow endangered finches in the Galapagos Islands to protect their nests from human introduced parasites.”

It took two more stories, all about animals- Sherlock noted, and then John started nibbling on the piece he’d snagged. He wasn’t… there…. but he was at least eating. Mycroft would pause every few stories and eat a few pieces himself. For the most part, they sat there - completely ignoring the world around them, with Sherlock watching on from the sofa.

It took nearly two hours to eat the whole container - the pieces cold and stale at the end, Mycroft wiping John’s fingers free of grease with a disposable wet wipe. As Mycroft moved the chair back, and started to clean up the scattered mess around them, John watched him move, face still closed off and distant.

Mycroft tossed the trash from the takeout in one of the bins in the kitchen, retrieving his jacket and umbrella from where Sherlock had shoved them to the floor. He rested a hand on John’s shoulder as he passed by on his way to the door, “I’ll see you again next Friday, John.”


End file.
